Re: Internet Connection Lost After Installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (WinXP SP2)

Victory!!!!

My box is back up and online! It took many days and nights of
gruelling work, but in the end I'm infection-free and all the software
seems to be healthy too. Moreover, my internet is as fast as it ever
has been, or faster. And even my MSN Messenger connects much more
smoothly and faster.

As for the root cause of the problem it appears to be virus related.
After I run a full chkdsk on my hard drives (which took about 15
hours!!!) and found no errors or problems of any kind, I went back to
the antivirus software. I purchased the latest version of Symantec
Internet Security in hope that I can run the command line virus scanner
from the bootable installation CD that comes in the box (I tried to
install the software, but the installation software would either
terminate with an error, or not start at all). It turned out that I
was in for some disappointment. First, when the box booted from the CD
it was unable to even see the hard drives, which could be somehow
related to the BIOS not being new enough to fully recognized the large
hard drives. As the result the virus scan tested the memory and boot
sectors of the CD only and did me absolutely no good. Not willing to
mess with BIOS upgrades at this tender stage, I was forced to try
something else. I discovered that the command line scanner is present
on the CD in an uncompressed form and I should be able to run from
command prompt under Windows. It seems, however, that while the
software is there, and even the virus definitions are present (though
you have to explicitly figure out the path and pass it as command line
parameter), the configuration files are not there (or at least I
couldn't find them), and so the tool refuses to start!!!

At this point I was quite desparate. I tried one last thing. I
plugged back the network cable and ran the online virus detection tool
from Symantec. Much to my surprise, it ran fine without crashing, and
after several hours reported detecting three files infected with three
different trojans. Interestingly, the registry entries that these
trojans supposedly created were not present on my box. I removed the
infected files, and restarted the computer.

I also found somewhere on Symantec's website a tool for removing
leftover files and registry entries from previously installed (or
unsuccessfully uninstalled) versions of their software. I recalled
that my installations failed a couple of times due to memory fault
errors, which I can attribute only to the viral activities on my box at
the time. Either way, I ran a couple of these handy tools, and
subsequently was able to successfully installe NIS 2005! Now, this was
a step in the right direction. I downloaded the latest upgrades and
virus definitions, unplugged the box from the network, and ran a full
virus scan. The report came out clean!

Since then I reenabled the startup services, plugged in the network
cable and stuck the remaining PCI cards back in, and I'm still running
nice and stable. Although the ultimate root cause of the problem is
still somewhat murky I have to attribute it to the viruses I had
contracted. Perhaps the most malicious was the one hidden in
msnmsg.exe which got detected and removed the first time I ran the
trial version of Symantec AntiVirus. Unfortunately some of the reports
are now gone since I had to unistall and reinstall NIS, but I'll see if
I can submit any of my files for analysis.

All in all, this was a great (though quite painful and time consuming)
adventure. I've learned a lot in the process, picked up several very
handy tools and tricks. Great thanks to Chuck, who was an invaluable
advisor in my distress. I also have a new found respect for the
antivirus software and its creators. And - who knows - perhaps I'll
even start running backup jobs regularly ;-).

Andrew

.

Relevant Pages

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